From April 6th 2015 the dual carriageway speed limit for HGVs (heavy goods vehicles) will increase from 50mph to 60mph. Following a recent consultation, there is also a plan to change the single carriageway limit from 40mph to 50mph, but there is no confirmed date for this yet.

According to Transport Minister Claire Perry “It is really important that speed limits for lorries reflect the needs of a modern transport network and improved vehicle technology.”

There’s 2 sides to theses plans…

Higher speed limits allow drivers to make mor deliveries in their working days, therefor increasing profits. This in turn would boost revenue via tax and duty. The higher limits will also allow them to keep up with more of the traffic, reducing the need for overtaking.

However, we only have to look at recent news stories to see the terrible effects of crashes involving lorries and the road safety charity Brake are concerned.

“Increasing the HGV speed limit on single and dual carriageways sets a dangerous precedent, sending the message that if traffic laws are persistently flouted, the government would rather change them than get tough with law-breaking drivers putting everyone at risk.

The decision runs against work to more effectively manage traffic speeds and reduce casualties and emissions on our roads.”

So, what do you think? A good idea, or will it increase the risk on the roads?

It’s been announced that from January 2015, all licences issued by the DVLA will no longer get a counterpart. This affects anyone who is applying for their first licence, adding categories or changing details. For most people this won’t make a huge difference as you only need your counterpart when hiring a car or taking driving lessons.

There will be a system in place for businesses to check a person’s driving licence online or by phone so long as they have the licence holders permission.

There hasn’t been any official announcement about any changes to the way theory and driving tests will be conducted, but I would guess that from the start of 2015 you will only need the photocard part of your driving licence to take the tests (but don’t quote me on that, there may be other changes…)

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From 1st November 2014 all new passenger cars with less than 7 seats have to be fitted with some sort of tyre pressure monitoring system as part of new EU legislation. Since 2012 all completely new models of cars had to be fitted with it, but from now, it includes every new car that is built.

Tyre pressure monitoring offers many benefits including:

Increased safety – under inflated tyres have significant effects on the steering and braking of a car, meaning you may not be able to stop safely in the event of an accident. It could also be an indicator of a slow puncture which you will hopefully be able to fix before you get stranded or damage is caused to the wheel

Better Fuel Economy – If a tyre has less pressure than recommended, this will increase the resistance the tyre creates, Imagine riding a bike with a flat tyre; you will have to pedal harder. The same is true with a car, resulting in the engine having to work harder and use more full. Under inflated tyres will also cause the tyre itself to wear out sooner.

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Whether a driver or a pedestrian, we all know a road traffic hot spot in our home town. It could be a awkward junction or an unmarked space in front of a school. Perhaps the road signs have faded over time, making driving through this area a pain in the rear end? U.K roads could soon see a drastic improvement with the governments new plans. All being well, these changes will not only be money well spent, but will make driving a much more pleasant experience- this gets the thumbs up from Want Driving Lessons!

There is to be a £15 Billion cash investment into the United Kingdom’s roads. This boost will be put to good use, tackling some of the country’s worst problem hotspots. Although the funds will be donated within the next year, it is said that drivers will only feel the full benefit of these changes by 2020.

Prime Minister David Cameron has plans to increase the number of roadways in use. He is set to tell business leaders that literally hundreds of extra lane miles will soon be made to create a kind of “roads revolution”, one that will hopefully shorten journey times for everyone.

There have bee some pretty exciting new ideas from the government, including plans to build a tunnel under world famous Stonehenge. Although these haven’t been given the go ahead just yet, they have been seriously considered by the Government in their mission to ease congestion on the busy A303.

There will be work on a number of different areas, including on stretches of the A1 around Newcastle, there will be some major construction work on the roads across the Pennines, the A47 in the east of England as well as the A27 on the south coast. These and many more will be on the governments funding list.

The plans will be announced by the Prime Minister at the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) annual conference in London. He will discuss the “biggest, boldest and most far-reaching” upgrade to the UK’s roads. But we have heard all this before right? Will these changes really make any difference to our roads?

These hundreds of extra lane miles on major motorways and trunk roads will be made in hope that they will increase the country’s productivity through it’s road networks. After all faster journeys will naturally mean less traffic, more time for freight to travel (as well as more space). This will in turn mean that businesses will get their goods quicker, all round a faster turnaround time for business transactions.

It’s a well known truth for regular road users that the A303 and the A1 have been trouble causing areas when it comes to traffic and other sources of congestion. These new plans will hopefully clear the road ways, making them much more efficient to use. But even on an smaller scale, getting around will also be made easier for the many millions that use these roads each year.

Corsa D or Corsavan

ADAM

What you’ll need to take to your test

You’ll need to take proof to your test that the vehicle has been checked and, if necessary, fixed.

The proof you bring has to be one of the following:

the actual recall letter or safety notice that has been stamped by the manufacturer or dealer
written proof from the manufacturer or a dealer (on official or headed notepaper) that the car is safe for use in a driving test

Your test will be cancelled and you could lose your fee if you don’t bring the right proof.

Tests dates up until 4 October 2014

If you have a test date up to and including Saturday 4 October 2014, you can contact the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) if you’re affected by this vehicle recall to cancel or rearrange your test free of charge.

You might have heard about this in the news recently, but from next year you may see driverless cars in several cities around the UK…

Soon, the United States won’t be the only place where cars regularly drive themselves. The UK government announced this week that it will permit driverless cars to traverse its roads beginning next January. The nation’s Department for Transport is set to review existing road rules to determine which ones need to be updated to accommodate self-driving vehicles. The agency will try to differentiate between how the laws will apply to vehicles in which the driver and the car trade off control versus cars that never cede control to a human.

The government also announced a competition of sorts, wherein cities would compete to host three separate trials of robocar technology.The three cities that prevail in the road trial sweepstakes will split a £10-million fund set up to pay for the testing, which is slated to last for between 18 and 36 months.

UK Business Secretary Vince Cable, who made the announcement at one of automotive engineering firm Mira’s research facilities, said he envisioned government support for self-driving cars, “…putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society.”

A lorry driver was browsing sex websites on his mobile phone when he ploughed into a stationary car, killing a young teaching assistant .

Ian Glover was flicking through profiles of women on an explicit dating website when he hit a Vauxhall on the A5 between Telford and Shrewsbury. The car flew over the safety barrier and killed Laura Jane Thomas, aged 20. Her fiancé Lewis Anthony Pagett was also seriously injured.

Glover, 44, was sentenced to five years in prison at Shrewsbury Crown Court. He admitted causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

The court heard that Glover, of Sunbeam Way, Birmingham, had worked as a driver for Sainsbury’s for 10 years. He was driving a 44-tonne Mercedes lorry to Shrewsbury on the A5 at 8.20am on July 21 last year when the accident happened.

Laura, of Hunters Close, Great Haywood, was travelling to Aberystwyth for a day by the sea with Lewis. But the couple’s car had broken down and they had been forced to pull up on a grass verge with the hazard lights on. They got out of the car and stood the other side of the barrier on the A5. Lewis was on the phone to his father when the crashed happened.

Glover told police that he could not remember what had happened before the crash. But tests on three mobile phones found in his lorry revealed that he was looking at the dating sites.

Mr Hugh O’Brien Quinn, prosecuting, said: “Mr Glover said that the only distraction in his car was the radio. “But two of the three phones found showed one site had been used while moving more than 10 times, including while on the M54 and the A5.

“It was a clear day and the Vauxhall would’ve been visible for a quarter of a mile but the defendant did not see it at all and drove straight into it.”

Glover was travelling at between 50mph and 56 mph.

Mr Paul Rogers, defending, said Mr Glover was “deeply ashamed” that he had viewed the websites while driving.

Judge Robin Onions, sentencing him yesterday, said: “You were on these sites at the point of impact.”

This is one subject that some people have trouble with when it comes to the DVSA driving theory test. It’s one of those questions you can’t guess, you either know it or you don’t…

With this in mind I though I would write this short post to hopefully give a few suggestions on ways to make stopping distance theory questions much easier to answer.

First of all, take a quick look at the image below

Trying to remember all that information is pretty tough for most people (even Driving Instructors!) so one option is to remember certain parts of it.

I like to focus on 30, 50 and 70. If you know those 3, and one of the others comes up you can work it out knowing the stopping distance on either side. So you can look at it as at worst, a very informed guess. However you still need to memorise 2 bits of information for 3 different speeds.

Stopping Distance Formula

If you can remember a few basic things, there is a more exact way of working out the stopping and braking distances for the theory test. Yes, there’s a bit of maths involved, but don’t be too concerned, take a look at this:

The distances that this formula come up with are the overall stopping distances (including your reaction time) and the only one that doesn’t quite match up with the highway code figures is the one for 40 mph which is listed at 118 feet, compared to the 120 feet provided by the formula. However, in the theory test, as it’s multiple choice and the answers are spread out with a gap of around 10 feet between answer so you should be able to pick the answer closest to your 120 feet.

It’s worthwhile mentioning that although most people prefer to do things in metres, the answers in the theory test give you the distances in metres and feet. However if you want to know the answer in metres for some reason, the divide your answer by 3 and that will give you the rough figure in metres. If you want to be exact, there are 3.2 feet in one metre.

For this to work, all you need to remember is you start with 20 x 2 and add 0.5 to the second number every time you add 10 mph to the speed.

Working Out The Braking Distance

Occasionally the question asks for the braking distance, which is the overall distance minus the thinking distance. Again, keeping the measurement to feet, it’s fairly easy to work this out. Below I’ve laid out the steps for working out the braking distance from 50 mph

1. 50 mph needs to be multiplied by 3.5 (3 lots of 0.5 more than 2). This gives you 175 feet

2. To get the braking distance in feet, simply subtract the speed from the overall stopping distance. 175 – 50 = 125 feet. This is enough to be able to answer the question.

3. If you need a rough figure in metres, 125 feet divided by 3 results in 41 metres (although the exact figure is 38.1 metres, and 38 metres is the distance listed in the highway code).

I hope this has helped, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me at www.rpldriving.com